Luigi Guarino

February 11, 2019

Historical plant exploration film comes to light

You may not have heard of USDA plant explorers David Fairchild and Palemon Howard Dorsett, but they are among those who have had the greatest impact on what we eat in the United States. Now a silent film of their 1925–26 collecting trip to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Sumatra, and Java has been found by the National Agricultural Library (NAL).

Pretty stunning it is too.

February 11, 2019

Wanna study seed systems in Africa?

PhD scholarship to study access to seeds in three East African countries. Have a look here if you have a master in quantitative social science and an interest in the foundations of sustainable food systems https://t.co/S6AUsgyGxK

— Ola Westengen (@OlaWestengen) February 10, 2019

February 11, 2019February 11, 2019

Brainfood: Salinity tolerance, Intensification & sparing, CWR templates, Cacao identity, Soybean CWR, Soybean & CC, Cassava adoption, Indian cauliflower, Bambara groundnut, CC breeding, NUS, Banana access, Enset

Salt stress under the scalpel – dissecting the genetics of salt tolerance. Could domesticate naturally salt-tolerant species and then breed for agronomic performance.
Exploring the relationship between agricultural intensification and changes in cropland areas in the US. Higher yields not necessarily associated with less agricultural expansion.
New tools for crop wild relative conservation planning. Lots of templates.
Genetic identity and origin of “Piura Porcelana”—a fine-flavored traditional variety of cacao (Theoborma cacao) from the Peruvian Amazon. Similar but not identical to Nacional from Ecuador.
Cytogenetics and genetic introgression from wild relatives in soybean. Intersubgeneric crossability barrier finally broken.
Increased temperatures may safeguard the nutritional quality of crops under future elevated CO₂ concentrations. Swings and roundabouts.
Poverty reduction effects of agricultural technology adoption: the case of improved cassava varieties in Nigeria. 1.62 million lifted out of poverty, give or take, depending on the breaks.
Frequent introgression of European cauliflowers in the present day cultivated Indian cauliflowers and role of Indian genotypes in the evolution of tropical cauliflower. More evidence of interdependence, if any were needed.
Bambara Groundnut is a Climate-Resilient Crop: How Could a Drought-Tolerant and Nutritious Legume Improve Community Resilience in the Face of Climate Change? Isn’t it obvious?
Adaption to Climate Change: Climate Adaptive Breeding of Maize, Wheat and Rice. “The good news is that there is significant genetic variation for heat and drought/submergence tolerance in the global maize, wheat and rice gene banks.”
Crop Diversification Through a Wider Use of Underutilised Crops: A Strategy to Ensure Food and Nutrition Security in the Face of Climate Change. And a good one too. The last three items are from the same edited volume, which looks like should be worth getting: Sustainable Solutions for Food Security.
Seed degeneration of banana planting materials: strategies for improved farmer access to healthy seed. Decentralize.
Enset in Ethiopia: a poorly characterized but resilient starch staple. Maybe the above will work for enset too, but it will need better collections.

February 8, 2019February 8, 2019

Spatial data roundup

There’s a new version of the high-resolution global crop production dataset known as SPAM, using 2010 data. This is the third iteration, and we’ve blogged about previous versions before. Here’s what rainfed smallholder peanut area looks like in India, with germplasm from Genesys on top of it for good measure.

Might as well point to a few other spatial resources which have recently become available since I’m at it:

Gridded Livestock of the World – Latest – 2010 (GLW 3)
Global Aridity Index and Potential Evapotranspiration (ET0) Climate Database v2
Travel time to cities and ports in the year 2015

I may play around with these too in the next weeks.

February 8, 2019February 8, 2019

Nibbles: I say potato, CATIE genebank, Wat, Teff war, Digitizing collections, Black History Month, Crop stats

Genebanks, crop wild relatives, friends, even a cool title — this one has it all: The New Potato.
Latest on the CATIE seed collection.
The wonder of Ethiopian food.
Which I guess can include teff again now.
Digitizing the Smithsonian — fast.
George Washington Carver celebrated.
Oh look, there’s a new version of SPAM. Let the GISsing begin.